Stabenow: House food stamp bill means farm bill conference can’t proceed
August 01, 2013 | 05:57 PM
Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said today that the decision of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., to bring up a bill to cut food stamps by $40 billion over 10 years means that conference on the farm bill cannot proceed in August as planned and that it will be very difficult to finish a farm bill this year.
“Now we are in a position we cannot negotiate. We do not know what the parameters of the bill will be,” Stabenow told reporters during a call she said had been planned to announce how Senate and House staff would work on the conference during the August recess that begins tonight.
Although she said she did not know the details of Cantor’s nutrition proposal, Stabenow said she considers the riders such as work requirements that were attached when the bill came up on the House floor to be “really appalling.”
“I know the majority floor leader in the House does not want a farm bill,” Stabenow said. “I know that the speaker would like to get it done,” she added, referring to a conversation she had with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.
“With what is actually happening in the House I am very concerned,” Stabenow said. “The clock is running, and running out on us in terms of a five-year comprehensive farm bill.”
Stabenow also said it will be difficult to pass an extension, and noted that she was scheduled to hold a colloquy on the Senate floor today with Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., over his opposition to the extension of the direct payments that crop farmers get whether prices are high or low. (See following story.)
In the early hours of New Year’s Day, the Congress extended the 2008 farm bill, making no changes to the direct payments program or food stamps, and providing for a dairy program that avoided an increase in milk prices that would have occurred if the country had reverted to the 1938 and 1949 permanent farm laws.
Stabenow said that some preconference staff discussions could continue on other titles, but that “until we will have the full parameters in front of us we can’t go as far as I would like to go and had anticipated goin.”
“This is a ticking time bomb waiting to go off,” Stabenow said. But in what may have been an inadvertent comment that the bill could be delayed until 2014, she added, “The biggest jobs we will pass this year or next will be the farm bill.”
One difference between the passage of a farm bill in the Senate last year and passage of bills in the Senate and the House this year is that the 2012 bill died when the 112th Congress ended, but the 2013 bills will remain alive because the 113th Congress will continue through 2014.
Stabenow also said she would encourage farmers, “everyone who just plain wants to thank a farmer” for good food, and consumers to push the House Republicans to move on the farm bill.
“I would encourage everyone who cares about production agriculture in our country, who cares about preserving our soil and our water, who cares about our nutrition and healthy food efforts, and who just plain wants to thank a farmer … to get engaged, to speak out on how we need a farm bill,” Stabenow said.
She said statements of support should be sent to House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., and House Agriculture ranking member Collin Peterson, D-Minn., and should include a call for the House to appoint conferees, she said.
“Enough is enough,” Stabenow concluded. “Farmers and ranchers do not deserve to be treated this way,” she said, adding that neither do people who need temporary food assistance.
“Now we are in a position we cannot negotiate. We do not know what the parameters of the bill will be,” Stabenow told reporters during a call she said had been planned to announce how Senate and House staff would work on the conference during the August recess that begins tonight.
Although she said she did not know the details of Cantor’s nutrition proposal, Stabenow said she considers the riders such as work requirements that were attached when the bill came up on the House floor to be “really appalling.”
“I know the majority floor leader in the House does not want a farm bill,” Stabenow said. “I know that the speaker would like to get it done,” she added, referring to a conversation she had with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.
“With what is actually happening in the House I am very concerned,” Stabenow said. “The clock is running, and running out on us in terms of a five-year comprehensive farm bill.”
Stabenow also said it will be difficult to pass an extension, and noted that she was scheduled to hold a colloquy on the Senate floor today with Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., over his opposition to the extension of the direct payments that crop farmers get whether prices are high or low. (See following story.)
In the early hours of New Year’s Day, the Congress extended the 2008 farm bill, making no changes to the direct payments program or food stamps, and providing for a dairy program that avoided an increase in milk prices that would have occurred if the country had reverted to the 1938 and 1949 permanent farm laws.
Stabenow said that some preconference staff discussions could continue on other titles, but that “until we will have the full parameters in front of us we can’t go as far as I would like to go and had anticipated goin.”
“This is a ticking time bomb waiting to go off,” Stabenow said. But in what may have been an inadvertent comment that the bill could be delayed until 2014, she added, “The biggest jobs we will pass this year or next will be the farm bill.”
One difference between the passage of a farm bill in the Senate last year and passage of bills in the Senate and the House this year is that the 2012 bill died when the 112th Congress ended, but the 2013 bills will remain alive because the 113th Congress will continue through 2014.
Stabenow also said she would encourage farmers, “everyone who just plain wants to thank a farmer” for good food, and consumers to push the House Republicans to move on the farm bill.
“I would encourage everyone who cares about production agriculture in our country, who cares about preserving our soil and our water, who cares about our nutrition and healthy food efforts, and who just plain wants to thank a farmer … to get engaged, to speak out on how we need a farm bill,” Stabenow said.
She said statements of support should be sent to House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., and House Agriculture ranking member Collin Peterson, D-Minn., and should include a call for the House to appoint conferees, she said.
“Enough is enough,” Stabenow concluded. “Farmers and ranchers do not deserve to be treated this way,” she said, adding that neither do people who need temporary food assistance.